Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-10-08
MR.. DONNELLY ECLIPsED.

| Mr.. Ignatus Donnelly has contrived to
re-awaken the Shakespeare-Bacon contro-
yersy most effectually. His claim of a
cipher in the text disclosing the author
ship of the plays of Shakespeare that credits
it 10 Francis Bacon, has, for the most
part, been received with very little favor.
The better Shakespeareian scholars have
not been content with denying his premises
and questioning his conclusions. They
have ridiculed the method of his reason
ing and made "pitch and toss" sport of
| his logic, and have even referred with dis
arrangement to the intellectual capacity of
| the ex-Congressman. There comes now
upon the field new Baconian advocate
| brace of them indeed-who so far eclipse
Mr.. Donnelly in the wonderful character
of their discoveries" that he and his con-
fused ciphers Of the text will drop out of
sight and be whelmed in the astonishing
boldness of the new theories.
In the October North american Reie7,
Hugo Black projects into the controversy
the claim of discovery of 4 cipher in the
epitaph upon Shakespeare's tomb clearly
and explicitly crediting the authorship of
the plays to Bacon. The lines according
to Knights edition are in this form:
Coon FRIEND FOE JESUS SAKE FoRsEARE
To DIGG TIE DUST FScLoAsED HERE.
BLEsE BE TIE MAN : SPARES IT'S STONES
AND cunsr BE He 7 MOVES MY BONES.
Mr.. Black takes the position that the
epitaph was unworthy either Bacon or
Shakespeare as literary production, since
it is doggerel. 1t was written then for a
purpose, and that purpose included the
omission of Shakespeare's name, a fact
deemed remarkable by Knight, De Quin-
cey and many others. But the capital
letters near the end of the first and second
lines contain all those of the name except
two. This led Black to look into Bacon's
cipher, omaia per onania, described in De
Augmentis for the key to the mystery of
the peculiar arrangement and lettering Of
the epitaph. He quotes Bacon's explain
alton of the cyptograph, which is based on
the cipher having significant and non
significant alphabet, that the searcher may
be blinded by installing the latter for the
true cipher, when really there is one within
In Bacon's biliteral alphabet only A and
B are used, but by repetition of these let
tiers and the permutative positions they
may be made to occupy, the entire alpha
bet can be expressed. Thus:
For A write For write. .o1bc1
For Bwrite.......-.-ddd0o For write...... oG5d6
For write .1GGbd For G wrte..-......Gd651
For For write........-Gatb5
And so on through the alphabet. Famili-
arity of the reader with the Baconian CT
pher, and the ease with which it may be
examined, render it unnecessary to further
explain it. Bacon used also two alphabets,
one Roman and one italic; the first 10 be
translated by the key on A, and the
other.to be read by the B key only. Thus
by fitting any external double-faced writ
ing, letter by letter, TO the internal writ
ing, first made biliterate," says Bacon
there may afterwards be written down
the epistle to be sent. Black concludes
that for italics small letters were substitu-
ted in the epitaph, for obvious reasons
The dash is reckoned small letter, be-
cause it stands for h" and the imposing
of 7 upon y is taken to mean a single
large letter, because the T is placed di
rectly over the Y.
On this basis Mr.. Black proceeded t.